Breakdown of Ассортимент напитков включает кофе, чай и молоко.
и
and
чай
the tea
кофе
the coffee
напиток
the drink
ассортимент
the assortment
молоко
the milk
включать
to include
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Questions & Answers about Ассортимент напитков включает кофе, чай и молоко.
Why is the word напитков in the genitive plural?
It shows a partitive relationship: “ассортимент напитков” literally means “assortment of drinks.” In Russian, nouns that denote quantity, measure or selection (ассортимент, выбор, куча, много) typically take a following noun in the genitive case to express “of something.” Since напитки is plural, you use the genitive plural напитков.
What case do the items кофе, чай and молоко take after включает?
They are direct objects of the transitive verb включать (“to include”), which governs the accusative case. All three nouns are inanimate, so their accusative forms coincide with the nominative:
- кофе (indeclinable)
- чай → чай
- молоко → молоко
Why isn’t there a comma before и in the list?
Russian punctuation does not use the so-called Oxford comma. You place commas between list items, but you do not put a comma before the final conjunction и.
Could I say ассортимент включает из кофе instead?
No. When you use включать in Russian, you do not add a preposition; the verb directly takes its object in the accusative. The form из кофе would require a verb like состоять (“to consist of”) or содержать (“to contain”), e.g. состоит из кофе or содержит кофе.
What’s the difference between включать and содержать?
Both can be translated as “to include” or “to contain,” but nuance differs:
- включать emphasizes the act of adding items into a set (ассортимент включает …).
- содержать stresses holding something inside (бутылка содержит воду – the bottle contains water).
Where is the stress in ассортимент?
On the third syllable: ассортИмент.
Why is кофе indeclinable?
кофе is a borrowing from French (café). In Russian it is treated as an indeclinable masculine noun: it has no separate plural or case endings in standard usage. When you need a plural sense, you can say два кофе without changing the form.
Can you replace включает with состоит из in this sentence? Would the meaning change?
You could say Ассортимент напитков состоит из кофе, чая и молока, and it would still be correct. However, состоит из stresses composition (“consists of”), while включает is more neutral and common for lists (“includes”). The nuance is slight, so both are acceptable here.